Cuba's message to its people: Be on best behavior for Obama

A Cuban man wearing an American flag applauds as President Barack Obama's convoy passes by on Sunday along the Malecon into Old Havana, Cuba.

A Cuban man wearing an American flag applauds as President Barack...

HAVANA - Elizardo Sánchez flew to Havana from Miami on Saturday, looking forward to meeting President Barack Obama with other Cuban dissidents invited to the U.S. Embassy here Tuesday. But at the airport, Cuban officials decided he would have to wait.

He was separated from his wife, he said, sent to a cold, windowless room and told that he was not being "detained" but rather "retained."

"Can I make a phone call?" he said he asked, as officials made copies of every document in his bag. "No," came the reply.

Three and a half hours later, Sánchez, a graying, steady critic of Raúl Castro's government who runs the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, was set free, angry but unsurprised.

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"It's the climate of intimidation the government is creating for Obama's visit," he said on the patio of his pink house here. "There are dozens of other cases."

Security and control are mainstays of every country Obama visits. But Cuba - a police state still working out how much to open up to the world, and to its own people - has gone above and beyond to prevent embarrassing surprises.

On Sunday, Cuban police officers surrounded by pro-government demonstrators detained dozens of protesters at the weekly march of the Ladies in White, a prominent dissident group, another sign of the clear message being sent to everyone on this gator-shaped island: Do not even think of disrupting this visit or doing anything to question our authority.

No matter what Obama says about freedom during his three-day stay, Cubans of all ages and ideologies will be expected to behave. "The government of Cuba is like a father," said Carlos Alzugaray Treto, a former Cuban diplomat who writes about Cuba's political dynamics. "Strong, but worried about the family."

Test of sovereignty

For decades, Cuban officials have treated every interaction with the United States as a test of sovereignty, and their approach to Obama's visit is partly an effort to project competence, confidence and a new commitment to calibrated friendship.

The propaganda has already changed. Billboards lashing imperialism a few months ago now denounce violence against women, mosquitoes or laziness. And beautification is suddenly competing with decay.

Fresh blue paint now graces the stadium where Obama will watch Cuba's national baseball team play the Tampa Bay Rays Tuesday. With a rush of repaving, much of Obama's route through the city could be mapped with the scent of fresh tar.

This is what most Cubans have noticed, and their response offers a lesson about the Cuban psyche: After decades of you'll-get-what-we-give-you government, appreciation often comes salted with sarcasm.

"Everyone wants to know how we Cubans feel about Obama coming," said Yamile Suárez, 36, shrugging near a repaved road in central Havana. "I'm frankly just happy that giant pothole finally got filled in, so if I have him to thank for it, thanks Obama!"

Stronger forms of discontent, or trouble of any kind, may not emerge. The baseball game will be an invitation-only event filled with government loyalists. Some of the shops near where Obama will stroll through Old Havana have been ordered to stay closed, and the police have been sweeping up prostitutes from nightclubs and beggars from the streets.

Sánchez, who spends much of his time tracking the kinds of detentions he was subjected to Saturday, said the government had also intensified its campaign of intimidation, making more than 1,000 arrests each month in the run-up to Obama's visit. In the first two weeks of March, there were 526 detentions, he said.

'Preventive' measures

Generally, people are held for a few hours - for printing fliers, for staging a protest in the street, or if the authorities suspect they plan to protest in the street, Sánchez said. But he and other opponents of the government said Obama's visit had set in motion a broader campaign to keep people in line.

"Right now what you see is preventive repression, so it does not occur to anyone to say anything to Obama while he is here," Sánchez said.

Other countries engage in similar activities - China, for example. And José Daniel Ferrer, an opposition activist in Santiago de Cuba, said that while pressure from the government had increased in recent months, it was largely in response to growing activism. He said the government would have preferred to avoid detentions before Obama's visit, but fear of peaceful protests had made them act otherwise.